Lavengro · Part I · Chapter 1 19 (2/2)

I scarcely know what induced me to take pleasure in this task, yet there can be no doubt that I did take pleasure in it, otherwise I should scarcely have performed it so readily. It has been said, I believe, that whatever we do con amore, we are sure to do well, and I dare say that, as a general rule, this may hold good. One thing is certain, that with whatever satisfaction to myself I performed the task, I was not equally fortunate in pleasing my employer, who complained of my want of discrimination and yet, strange as it may seem, this last is a quality upon which I not only particularly valued myself at the time, but still do in a high degree. I made a point never to admit any persons without subjecting them to the rigorous investigation of the pair of eyes that providence had been pleased to place in my head. To those who pleased me not, I was little better than a Cerberus whom it was very difficult to pass; whilst to others, I was all easiness and condescension, ushering them straight to the sanctum sanctorum, in which, behind a desk covered with letters and papers, stood⁠—for he never sat down to his desk⁠—the respectable individual whose lawful commands to obey and whose secrets to keep I had pledged myself by certain articles duly stamped and signed.

“This will never do,” said he to me one day; “you will make me a bankrupt, unless you alter your conduct. There is scarcely one of my respectable clients but complains of your incivility. I speak to you, my poor boy, as much on your own account as on mine. I quite tremble for you. Are you aware of the solecisms you commit? Only yesterday you turned Sir Edward from the door, and immediately after you admitted Parkinson the poet What an insult to a gentleman to be turned from the door, and a strolling vagabond to be admitted before his eyes!”

“I can’t help it,” said I; “I used my best powers of discrimination; I looked both full in the face, and the one struck me as being an honest man, whilst the other had the very look of a slave driver.”

“In the face? Bless me! But you looked at their dress, I suppose? You looked at Sir Edward’s dress?”

“No,” said I, “I merely looked at his countenance.”

“Which you thought looked like that of a slave driver. Well, he’s been in the Indies, where he made his fortune; so, perhaps, you may not be so far out. However, be more cautious in future; look less at people’s countenances and more at their⁠—I dare say you understand me: admit every decent person, and if you turn away anybody, pray let it be the poet Parkinson⁠ ⁠…”

Keeping the admonition of my principal in view, I admitted without word or comment, provided the possessors had a decent coat to their backs, all kinds of countenances⁠—honest countenances, dishonest countenances, and those which were neither. Amongst all these, some of which belonged to naval and military officers, notaries public, magistrates, bailiffs, and young ecclesiastics⁠—the latter with spotless neckcloths and close-shaven chins⁠—there were three countenances which particularly pleased me: the first being that of an ancient earl, who wore a pigtail, and the back of whose coat was white with powder; the second, that of a yeoman ninety years old and worth £90,000, who, dressed in an entire suit of whitish corduroy, sometimes slowly trotted up the court on a tall heavy steed, which seemed by no means unused to the plough. The third was that of the poet Parkinson.

I am not quite sure that I remember the business which brought this last individual so frequently to our office, for he paid us a great many visits.

I am inclined to believe, however, that he generally carried in his pocket a bundle of printed poems of his own composition, on the sale of which he principally depended for his subsistence. He was a man of a singular, though to me by no means unpleasant countenance; he wore an old hat and a snuff-coloured greatcoat, and invariably carried in his hand a stout cudgel like a man much in the habit of walking, which he probably was, from the circumstance of his being generally covered with dust in summer, and in winter splashed with mud from head to foot.

“You cannot see the principal today, Mr. Parkinson,” said I to him once, as unannounced he entered the room where I sat alone; “he is gone out and will not return for some time.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate, for I want to consult him on some particular business.”

“What business is it? Perhaps I can be of service to you. Does it relate to the common law?”

“I suppose so, for I am told it is a common assault; but I had better wait till the gentleman comes home. You are rather too young; and besides I have other matters to consult him about; I have two or three papers in my pocket⁠ ⁠…”

“You cannot see him today,” said I; “but you were talking of an assault. Has anyone been beating you?”

“Not exactly; I got into a bit of a ruffle, and am threatened with an action.”

“Oh! so you have been beating somebody.”

“And if I did, how could I help it? I’ll tell you how it happened. I have a gift of making verses, as perhaps you know⁠—in fact, everybody knows. When I had sowed my little trifle of corn in the bit of ground that my father left me, having nothing better to do, I sat down and wrote a set of lines to my lord, in which I told him what a fine old gentleman he was. Then I took my stick and walked off to ⸻, where, after a little difficulty, I saw my lord, and read the verses to him which I had made, offering to print them if he thought proper. Well, he was mightily pleased with them, and said they were too good to be printed, and begged that I would do no such thing, which I promised him I would not, and left him, not before, however, he had given me a King James’ guinea, which they say is worth two of King George’s. Well, I made my bow and went to the village, and in going past the alehouse I thought I would just step in, which I did. The house was full of people, chiefly farmers, and when they saw me they asked me to sit down and take a glass with them, which I did, and being called upon for a song I sang one, and then began talking about myself and how much my lord thought of me, and I repeated the lines which I had written to him, and showed them the James’ guinea he had given me. You should have seen the faces they cast upon me at the sight of the gold; they couldn’t stand it, for it was a confirmation to their envious hearts of all I had told them. Presently one called me a boasting fool, and getting up said that my lord was a yet greater fool for listening to me, and then added that the lines I had been reading were not of my own making. ‘No, you dog,’ said he, ‘they are not of your own making; you got somebody to make them for you.’ Now, I do not mind being called a boaster, nor a dog either, but when he told me that my verses were not my own, I couldn’t contain myself, so I told him he lied, whereupon he flung a glass of liquor in my face, and I knocked him down.”

“Mr. Parkinson,” said I, “are you much in the habit of writing verses to great people?”

“Great and small. I consider nothing too high or too low. I have written verses upon the king, and upon a prize ox; for the first I got nothing, but the owner of the ox at Christmas sent me the better part of the chine.”

“In fact, you write on all kinds of subjects.”

“And I carry them to the people whom I think they’ll please.”

“And what subjects please best?”

“Animals; my work chiefly lies in the country, and people in the country prefer their animals to anything else.”

“Have you ever written on amatory subjects?”

“When young people are about to be married, I sometimes write in that style; but it doesn’t take. People think, perhaps, that I am jesting at them, but no one thinks I am jesting at his horse or his ox when I speak well of them. There was an old lady who had a peacock; I sent her some lines upon the bird; she never forgot it, and when she died she left me the bird stuffed and ten pounds.”

“Mr. Parkinson, you put me very much in mind of the Welsh bards.”

“The Welsh what?”

“Bards. Did you never hear of them?”

“Can’t say that I ever did.”

“You do not understand Welsh?”

“I do not.”

“Well, provided you did, I should be strongly disposed to imagine that you imitated the Welsh bards.”

“I imitate no one,” said Mr. Parkinson; “though if you mean by the Welsh bards the singing bards of the country, it is possible we may resemble one another; only I would scorn to imitate anybody, even a bard.”

“I was not speaking of birds, but bards⁠—Welsh poets⁠—and it is surprising how much the turn of your genius coincides with theirs. Why, the subjects of hundreds of their compositions are the very subjects which you appear to delight in, and are the most profitable to you⁠—beeves, horses, hawks⁠—which they described to their owners in colours the most glowing and natural, and then begged them as presents. I have even seen in Welsh an ode to a peacock.”

“I can’t help it,” said Parkinson, “and I tell you again that I imitate nobody.”

“Do you travel much about?”

“Aye, aye. As soon as I have got my seed into the ground, or my crop into my barn, I lock up my home and set out from house to house and village to village, and many is the time I sit down beneath the hedges and take out my pen and inkhorn. It is owing to that, I suppose, that I have been called the flying poet.”

“It appears to me, young man,” said Parkinson, “that you are making game of me.”

“I should as much scorn to make game of anyone, as you would scorn to imitate anyone, Mr. Parkinson.”

“Well, so much the better for us both. But we’ll now talk of my affair. Are you man enough to give me an opinion upon it?”

“Quite so,” said I, “Mr. Parkinson. I understand the case clearly, and I unhesitatingly assert that any action for battery brought against you would be flung out of court, and the bringer of said action be obliged to pay the costs, the original assault having been perpetrated by himself when he flung the liquor in your face; and to set your mind perfectly at ease I will read to you what Lord Chief Justice Blackstone says upon the subject.”

“Thank you,” said Parkinson, after I had read him an entire chapter on the rights of persons, expounding as I went along. “I see you understand the subject, and are a respectable young man⁠—which I rather doubted at first from your countenance, which shows the folly of taking against a person for the cast of his face or the glance of his eye. Now, I’ll maintain that you are a respectable young man, whoever says to the contrary; and that some day or other you will be an honour to your profession and a credit to your friends. I like chapter and verse when I ask a question, and you have given me both; you shall never want my good word; meanwhile, if there is anything that I can oblige you in⁠—”

“There is, Mr. Parkinson, there is.”

“Well, what is it?”

“It has just occurred to me that you could give me a hint or two at versification. I have just commenced, but I find it no easy matter, the rhymes are particularly perplexing.”

“Are you quite serious?”

“Quite so; and to convince you, here is an ode of Ab Gwilym which I am translating, but I can get no farther than the first verse.”

“Why, that was just my case when I first began,” said Parkinson.

“I think I have been tolerably successful in the first verse, and that I have not only gotten the sense of the author, but that alliteration, which, as you may perhaps be aware, is one of the most peculiar features of Welsh poetry. In the ode to which I allude the poet complains of the barbarity of his mistress, Morfydd, and what an unthankful task it is to be the poet of a beauty so proud and disdainful, which sentiment I have partly rendered thus:⁠—

Mine is a task by no means merry,

in which you observe that the first word of the line and the last two commence with the same letter, according to the principle of Welsh prosody. But now cometh the difficulty. What is the rhyme for merry?”

“Londonderry,” said the poet without hesitation, “as you will see by the poem which I addressed to Mr. C.,93 the celebrated Whig agriculturist, on its being reported that the king was about to pay him a visit:⁠—

But if in our town he would wish to be merry

Pray don’t let him bring with him Lord Londonderry,

which two lines procured me the best friend I ever had in my life.”

“They are certainly fine lines,” I observed, “and I am not at all surprised that the agriculturist was pleased with them; but I am afraid that I cannot turn to much account the hint which they convey. How can I possibly introduce Londonderry into my second line?”

“I see no difficulty,” said Parkinson; “just add:⁠—

I sing proud Mary of Londonderry

to your first line, and I do not see what objection could be made to the couplet, as they call it.”

“No farther,” said I, “than that she was not of Londonderry, which was not even built at the time she lived.”

“Well, have your own way,” said Parkinson; “I see that you have not had the benefit of a classical education.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Why, you never seem to have heard of poetical license.”

“I see,” said I, “that I must give up alliteration. Alliteration and rhyme together will, I am afraid, be too much for me. Perhaps the couplet had best stand thus:⁠—

I long have had a duty hard,

I long have been fair Morfydd’s bard.

“That won’t do,” said Parkinson.

“Why not?”

“Because ’tis not English. Bard, indeed! I tell you what, young man, you have no talent for poetry; if you had, you would not want my help. No, no; cleave to your own profession and you will be an honour to it, but leave poetry to me. I counsel you as a friend. Good morning to you.”]